The Financial Close Health Check

If your most experienced close person was out sick for a week during close, the process would still run on schedule.

Every close task has a documented owner — not "the accounting team," but a specific role.

A new hire could follow written instructions and produce the same result an experienced person would, without asking follow-up questions.

Your team has a clear, written threshold for what variance size requires escalation versus what's normal.

You could describe your close calendar without opening a file — the sequence and dependencies are common knowledge, not one person's memory.

When a system or process changes, the documentation gets updated within the same month, not "eventually."

Your close process has a defined "done" for every step — not just "task complete," but a specific output that proves it.

If asked in a board meeting how you know your numbers are accurate, you could answer with a process, not a person's reputation.

Onboarding a new finance hire onto the close process takes days, not months.

You've reviewed your close documentation in the last 3 months — not written once and forgotten.